


Child of Metal

by fadeverb



Series: Kai and Mannie [10]
Category: In Nomine
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-17
Updated: 2013-08-17
Packaged: 2017-12-23 18:10:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/929527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fadeverb/pseuds/fadeverb
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kai swipes a Djinn. These things happen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Child of Metal

Hushi doesn't once let go of me while we're waiting for the Malakite to wake up. I'm assuming Malakite, anyway; the one look and then prompt attack suggests an honor check that came up dirty. I let her cling, because it's a good sign, and work on making a few notes for my report. Somehow, these jobs never end up being as straight-forward as I'm assured they'll be. I don't mind; variety is the spice of life. Sometimes a little spicier than my tastes run to, maybe.

His eyes snap open, and he twitches against the jumper cables I've tied him up with. Poor guy looks downright offended, which suggests a Swordie to me. Waking up tied to a tree is never a dignified way to start the day. "Hey," I say, "glad to have you back. How's your head?"

Glaring at me like there's no tomorrow, and then he gets that confused look I seem to induce in so many angels. It's not my fault they have a hard time twisting their minds around the way I work. "What's going _on_?" A plaintive wail, of someone who's just discovered another angel smacked him over the head with a chair leg. Well, most of the chair. Took more than one whack.

"You," I say, "are jumping to conclusions. Bad habit of my own, so I can see it in others easily. Now, if you can sit still and cooperate, I'll untie you. Deal?"

"That," he says, eyeing Hushi, who whimpers and clings to me more from behind now, "is a dishonorable wretch."

"Yes, but she's working on that." I crouch down and start undoing the knots, and unclamp his thumbs. "We're heading to a Tether not far from here. Or at least, we were, until you tried to smite her. Trust me, if she needed smiting, I'd be doing it." I offer him a hand up, but he ignores it, pulling himself to his feet haughtily enough to suit a Seraph. "Once you were out, I wasn't about to leave you lying around unconscious for anyone to find."

"Renegade," he says, daggers in his eyes for poor little Hushi. "What's _your_ part in this?"

"Kai," I say, and offer him my hand again, this time to shake. He finally takes it gingerly. "Ofanite of Creation. In service to Lightning. And this here is Hushi, a formerly Vapulan Djinn who would like to reach this Tether before anyone checks on her Heart back in Hell. All clear now?"

"She didn't show--" His face twists up. "The most honorable thing she's ever done is to steal a dog. How does that even make _sense_?"

"I'll explain later. But we're on a deadline, so if you'll excuse me, I'd like to get moving."

"Oh, no. I'm not letting either of you out of my sight until we reach this supposed Tether." He folds his arms. "I mean to have words with the Seneschal there about what you did."

"Suit yourself." It would have to be a Malakite; I find Seraphim easier to deal with. I've even learned to carry around painkillers for when I tell them my theories about what Eli's up to. "So try to keep up."

We move on between the trees, slower than I'd like, but Hushi is still limping from the Malakite's attack. She doesn't let go of my arm, sending occasional nervous glances over my shoulder towards the Malakite. "You know," I say, after about an hour, "as long as we're going somewhere together, introductions are in order. You?"

"Verito. Malakite of the Sword. And I'm hardly about to take the word of any _Creationer_." 

"Yeah, you and most of your fellow Servitors. What were you doing in the area, anyway?"

"None of your business, Ofanite."

"As you'd like." I pat Hushi on the arm. "Relax, I'm not going to let him hurt you. Or me," I add, at her worried expression.

"She's attuned to you." Verito sounds as if he's discussing a nasty fungus he's just discovered.

"Yup."

"How can that _possibly_ be honorable?"

I spin to face him, because my patience isn't so thick to start with, and he's wearing it thinner than onion paper. "Would you prefer that she _not_ care?"

Several responses sort through his mind, flickering across his face, but he finally says, "I suppose not."

"Good. Then hurry up and stop whining about a situation where you don't have the full story."

Three hours later, Hushi's whimpering is getting on my nerves, and Verito speaks up again. "How can there possibly be a Lightning Tether out _here_?"

"Not a Lightning Tether."

"Flowers?"

"Nope."

The Malakite is silent a while longer. "Surely there are faster ways to reach--"

"Yes, but in this case, walking is polite." Running would be more fun, but Hushi wouldn't be able to keep up, and her vessel isn't light enough to let me carry her quickly. "Quiet. We're almost there."

When we step into the clearing, there's no one to be seen, but I can feel the Tether rushing about me the instant we cross the edge. Hushi shivers beside me. "Greetings," I say, searching for formal phrasing. This would be easier in angelic than English. Human languages are beautiful in literature for their complex imprecision, but occasionally inconvenient for the same reason. "May we speak with the Seneschal?"

A wolf stalks out of the trees. Enormous animal, its head reaching nearly as high as my shoulders. "You stink of civilization," it rumbles. "What do you want of us?" Above me, birds spin in the sky, a delicate dance that watches everything we do.

I gently remove Hushi's fingers from my arm, and arrange her in front of me. "I bring you a repentant demon, who would speak with your Archangel and beg it grant her redemption. Will you accept her?"

The Seneschal stalks forward to sniff at Hushi's face, as the Djinn trembles against me. "Worked metal and storms enslaved. She smells of Technology."

"And would renounce it."

The wolf's ears twitch. "Very well. We shall take her, and see if survives."

"Thank you, Seneschal." I let Hushi cling to me for a moment in a tight hug, and then push her away again. "I need to go now. I told you where you can leave a message for me in Heaven, if you make it through this. Are you sure this is where you want to go?"

The little Djinn nods fiercely. "Sure," she whispers. "I'm sure."

"Good. Best of luck. Remember what I told you earlier." I kiss her on the forehead, bow politely, and leave, one confused Malakite of the Sword trailing along behind me.

"Why would a _Vapulan_ want to give herself to the Archangel of Animals?" he asks, once we've gone a ways from the Tether. "The Words are entirely antithetical."

"Precisely. And it...suits her. Was Hushi's idea to start with, and let me tell you trying to get from the middle of a city to a Tether of Animals against an unknown deadline is not an easy task, even for me. I'm just glad Dad gets along with them so well." We've gone far enough that it won't annoy the Seneschal much, and I'm tired of walking, so I snap my motorcycle into existence. I'm never going to get tired of doing that. Verito twitches at the disturbance. "Want a ride back?"

"I...suppose so." He climbs on behind me, gingerly placing his arms around my waist. "But why Animals?"

"Hushi's just an itty bitty Djinn, sent to Earth to attune to valuable lab critters in case anyone tried to free them. Something to do with genetic modification, she didn't know the details. When she tried to break her attunement to one of the dogs they were working on, it backlashed on her. She ended up Cherubing at the dog all over the place. Ran off with the dog to save it, and since I was watching that lab anyway..." I shrug, and kick into gear. "Thought it might be worth giving her a chance. She seems to agree. If she makes it through redemption, Hushi will do just fine with Animals, or possibly Flowers. They'll find her a place."

"And what if she doesn't make it?" Verito asks, raising his voice to be heard over the wind rushing by us. Now here's proper speed, a beautiful thing after walking. It makes me feel right at home again.

"Still better than being a demon," I say. And he can't argue with that.

#

When the others had gone, the wolf turned to Hushi, and it said:

_Daughter of twisted metals, what would you ask of me?_

Hushi dropped to her knees, and she replied:

_That you might call your Lord, to see if he finds me worthy._

The wolf stepped nearer to her, until hot breath touched all the Djinn's neck, bringing with it ancient fears Hushi had not before known she carried, and said:

_You are not worthy._

And the Djinn wept, for she knew full well this was True. But she cried out to the wolf:

_Let my Heart be broken, then, and let me be torn apart, for I would no longer be a daughter of the twisted metals. I have left my Dark Lord, and I shall take no other like him again._

The wolf listened to this, and in its own Heart it saw the Djinn as the cub of parents who would devour their own young. The wolf remembered its own cubs, and all the care it had shown for them. And so the wolf said:

_I shall call upon my Lord, and you may yet be shown mercy. Now remove your clothes that stink of dark cities, that you may present yourself bare as a newborn._

Hushi lay bare in supplication, and when the Lord of the wolf arrived, she moved to speak, that she might beg mercy. But she found she had no words before such terribly glory. And the Lord said of the wolf, in a language the Djinn had never before heard, that sang of Truth to her ears:

_What have you brought me, to profane this holy place?_

The wolf crouched low beside her, and bared its throat, and said:

_My Lord, who has dominion over all creatures that creep and swim and fly, this one is not worthy, yet she presents herself to be ripped apart as sacrifice to you. Have mercy upon her, for she has only the understanding of a newborn cub, and yet she has seen her sins, and cried out to you._

The Lord of Animals had the voice of all creatures. In it the Djinn heard the howling of wolves, the song of birds in the gray of morning, and the way fish sweep ever-silent through the water. And the Lord looked down on her, and said:

_Cast aside this body shaped as the enemies of my creatures, and let the light of Heaven shine upon it._

All the fear Hushi had known before was nothing to this, and she said, most humbly:

_Lord who I would have as mine, I cannot bear the light of Heaven, and to touch it in my true form would destroy me. But I shall do as you command._

And so the Djinn cast aside her human-shaped vessel, and showed herself to be a twisted creature of no proper form. The light of Heaven saw all her impurities, and reached out to consume her.

But the Lord of Animals wrapped Hushi inside his fur and claws and scales and skin, and as she cried out she was carried to the places of Heaven where the souls of all holy creatures rejoice in their true natures. And when she was set down, as gently as a mother who has held one of her offspring in careful jaws, she crouched low and bared her throat, saying:

_You are my lord, and I shall have no other._

#

The Cherub bowed her head before the wheel of fire that spun before her. "And so it was done. I thank you for your part in this, for without you I would never have found my Bright Lord. I am a small and weak creature, but I shall grow in strength as I have been commanded to do by my Lord. What may I do to repay you?"

The Ofanite shed glittering sparks, and it considered the creature that stood there, a young wolf with gray-feathered wings. It said to the Cherub, "Remember that you are beautiful. You are the work of art by an Archangel, and if you would hold to this truth, none can take it from you."

And they were both pleased.


End file.
